Suspects tied to illegal-document makers in Grand Rapids, Holland sent to prison

An investigator shows counterfeit documents that turned up in an earlier investigation in the Grand Rapids area.File photo

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Five of 11 suspected illegal residents accused of producing fraudulent Social Security cards and green cards have been sentenced to prison terms this week.

The group is believed to be one of the largest such counterfeiting rings in West Michigan.

On Thursday, Feb. 7, U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker sentenced Juan Jose Morales-Martinez to 46 months in prison, and Hugo Alexis Morales-Jimenenz to eight months in prison.

Earlier this week, Rodolfo Esquivel was sentenced to one year and one day, while Ampara Mercado and Giovanni Sanabria-Morales were sentenced to eight months in prison. Others await trial or sentencing, court records showed.

The government said that hundreds, if not thousands of people, obtained illegal documents, produced and sold in Kent and Ottawa counties. Police arrested the suspects last June.

Investigators said the suspects had ties to others busted in recent years for making false identification cards for illegal residents. Evidence seized in 2004 included business cards in Spanish that appeared to be for legitimate businesses but were actually contact numbers for illegal documents.

The same business cards, with the same phone number, turned up in 2007 when police raided a home where illegal documents were being produced, Daniel Gwyn, a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations, wrote in a criminal complaint.

He said that “it is common practice for counterfeit identification-document vendors to hand out business cards bearing a name and telephone number to potential customers, but for the business cards to advertise an innocuous business such as landscaping, car-washing or photography. … Vendors pass the cards out in venues frequented by illegal aliens … .”

He said that fake-document vendors keep the same phone number for long periods so that the numbers become widely known by illegal residents.

Police said that a source provided information about the document-making group, including security precautions taken by traffickers based on previous encounters with authorities, records showed.

The group started storing electronic templates of counterfeit identification documents on thumb or flash drives that can be easily removed or concealed. They also removed the leftover image from the computer.

The source also told investigators that “the vendors will have their wives or girlfriends hold the thumb or flash drives because they do not want to be caught with them, and also believe that it is less likely law enforcement will search the females if they are stopped,” records showed.

The document makers are also using text messaging to transmit images and information to limit contacts with customers. This prevents a potential customer from being followed to a production facility.

The source’s “information about these security precautions was credible to me because it indicated that the traffickers had educated themselves about how this sort of investigation is typically conducted,” Gwyn wrote.

Gwyn said several transactions occurred in Holland and Grand Rapids.

The government said all but one of the defendants are Mexican citizens, and face deportation.